Spearcrest Saints

Spearcrest Saints Aurora Reed Copyright Copyright © 2023 by Aurora Reed All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, copied, distributed or adapted in any way, with the exception of certain activities permitted by applicable copyright laws, such as brief quotations in the context of a review or academic work. For permission to publish, distribute or otherwise reproduce this work, please contact the author at [email protected] Proofread by: KMWProofreading Contents Author Note Dedication PART 1 1. White Rook 2. Sacred Duty 3. Marble Egg 4. Glass Coffin 5. Necessary Beauty 6. Promethean Myth 7. Summer Ball 8. Alone Together 9. Ice Queen 10. Staghorn Fern 11. Sweet Dreams 12. Elusive Angel 13. Left Hand 14. Defunct Philosopher 15. Perfect Parallels PART 2 16. Porcelain Doll 17. Blackwood Triptych 18. Spearcrest Wolf 19. Thrown Gauntlet 20. Broken Goddess 21. Fear & Fate 22. Poetic Analogies 23. Adored Adversary 24. Green-Eyed Monster 25. Glass Armour 26. Oleander Promise 27. Sibling Negotiation 28. Anti-Ophelia 29. Open Wound PART 3 30. Lucky Mouth 31. Black Doberman 32. First Edition 33. Dauntless Dreams 34. Pirate Lover 35. Prison Cell 36. Sage Lace 37. Complete Combustion 38. Sunshine Scandal 39. Bishop Blackwood 40. True Saint 41. Inexplicable Dread 42. Chapter 42 - Last Assignment 43. Gone PART 4 44. Brutalist Patriarch 45. Ugly Truth 46. Primrose Cottage 47. Arm’s Length 48. Debt Incurred 49. Friendly Fire 50. Beautiful Nemesis 51. Effective Method 52. Sublime Fools 53. Luminous Sound THE END Acknowledgements Sign up for Dark Heart About Aurora Also By Aurora Reed Author Note D ear reader, This book takes place at the fictional private boarding school Spearcrest Academy and is set in the United Kingdom. Speacrest Academy is a High School and Sixth Form, so students are aged 12 to 18. If you are a US reader, I've included a little comparison guide of US and UK school years for reference. UK High School (also known as Lower School) Years Year 7 = 6th Grade Year 8 = 7th Grade Year 9 = 8th Grade Year 10 = 9th Grade (Freshman Year) Year 11 = 10th Grade (Sophomore Year) UK Sixth Form/College (also known as Upper School) Years Year 12 (Lower Sixth) = 11th Grade (Junior Year) Year 13 (Upper Sixth) = 12th Grade (Senior Year) The main characters in Spearcrest Knight are all in UK Year 13 (US Senior Year ) and 18 years of age . I hope this guide makes sense and helps you during your time within the hallowed halls of Spearcrest Academy. Dedication For Danni—my real-life dark academia darling. Chapter 1 White Rook TheodoraMy voice is locked inside my chest, and my father holds the key. It’s always that way when he’s around, although he’s not around much. I see him maybe once or twice every few years. He’s a busy man, and he lives in Russia. He’s involved in politics, though I’m sure he’s not a politician. I don’t know because he never talks about work. He never talks about much at all.And since I’m being educated in England, where I live with my mother and grandmother in their ancestral home, my father and I rarely see each other.Sometimes, I wish I saw him more often. Part of me is just a little girl who wishes her dad would spend time with her and hold her when she’s sad or scared.Most of the time, I wish I never saw him at all.When he comes to visit, my father always brings gifts. Perfect gifts for perfect little girls. Dolls, dresses, jewellery, all packaged beautifully in pastel paper the colour of sugared almonds, bound with thick satin ribbons.The receiving of the gifts is a ritual: I must take the box and thank him, I must sit at his feet in the parlour and slowly pull on the ribbon to undo the bow. I must lift the lid and delicately set it aside, then push aside the tissue paper, which crinkles like desiccated skin underneath my fingertips.Finally, I must lift the gift from its pastel coffin and widen my eyes and say, “Thank you, Papa.”That’s the hardest part. Because during the entire ritual, my voice is a marble egg in my throat, suffocating me.It happens every time my father is near, and his dark eyes are fixed on me, and his hard face is set in that permanent scowl of his. All it would take is a smile from him for the egg to melt and my voice to become my own again.But my father never smiles.So I swallow and swallow, trying to shift the marble egg—it doesn’t. It never does. When I speak, my voice comes out strangled and warbling, like I’m about to cry.Except that crying isn’t allowed. Crying would draw my father’s wrath as suddenly as the awakening of an angry god. Crying would shatter the ritual, which would end suddenly.“I must accept that God did not give me a son,” my father would say. “But I refuse to accept that God would give me such a weak child.”There lies the key to my father’s dissatisfaction. He only ever had one child with my mother, and he’s a pious man, too pious for divorce or affairs—so I am his only child.Not a son, strong and bold and proud. But a scared, weak little girl who can hardly bring herself to speak without weeping.If I don’t cry, and manage to thank him without the trembling of my voice breaking into a sob or a whimper, then my father looks at me and gives a tyrant’s nod.It’s how he signals that the ritual is over, that my performance was good enough, and that I may retreat. I carefully replace the gift in its box, pick it up, stand and leave, walking calmly when I would prefer to run.When I get back to my bedroom, I open the closet set into the wall and place the new present on top of the old ones where they live, all untouched